Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise a couple of issues in respect of the ongoing systems failure. The CervicalCheck scandal, the HSE and the hepatitis C scandal are all systems failures. We have a systems failure as to the reason Apple has abandoned the €850 million data centre in Athenry. That was abandoned because of a failure in our system in Ireland, which allowed so much delay to be imposed on Apple that it eventually decided to go elsewhere. In Denmark, the exact same data centre was completed while we had not even gone through the planning process.

Today we learn about people facing a mass eviction by a mysterious landlord. Some 40 tenants are being kicked out of their accommodation in north Dublin. Why? It is because our housing system does not work and because of the regulations around houses that make it unprofitable for people in the building industry to build houses and the enormous bureaucracy around the Government's current building programme. There needs to be checks and balances but, ultimately, if the system is too bureaucratic, it will fail people.

It has failed Vicky Phelan and Emma Mhic Mhathúna. Ms Mhic Mhathúna gave an emotional interview. Her five sons, one of whom is just a baby, have a mother who is dying of cancer as a result of a failure of the system. I thank the Leader for organising the debate on the issue of corporate manslaughter. The system is saying nobody is liable to face prison because of a systems failure. We are at the very beginning of this appalling tragedy for women. We should bear in mind that, of the 240 women who got hepatitis C and HIV because of the blood transfusion scandal, of those 1,700 women who had haemophilia, 112 died because of the blood transfusion service. Nobody went to jail because the system does not hold any individual accountable for his or her personal failings. They knew the blood products were contaminated and that people would die as a result but they gave them out anyway. They did the same in France. The system failed. We must either change the system or put people in jail. Those people do not care whether some other person dies as a result of their mismanagement, as we have seen in the HSE. If the Corporate Manslaughter Bill had been passed in 2013, as proposed by the Law Reform Commission in 2005, or if it had been passed in 2016, we would not be having inquiries. We would be having court cases and people would be going to jail. They would be held to account and, while the system would have failed the people, at least those women would be getting justice. They are the ones who are dying as a result of mismanagement in the HSE.